


A Village

by through-the-stars-to-the-pavement (delicate_mageflower)



Series: Sun, Stars, Earth [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Absurdly Liberal Application of Headcanon, Anxiety, Becoming Parents, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Other, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Post-Hundred Year War - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Turtleducks, Unconditional Love, With a very fluffy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25743820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicate_mageflower/pseuds/through-the-stars-to-the-pavement
Summary: Sometimes a family is a Fire Lord, his boyfriend and his girlfriend who are also dating each other, his ex-girlfriend, her girlfriend, and all the friends they've made along the way to help them onto the next stage.Or: Zuko needs an heir and he has what is, for him, the ideal situation to make that happen, despite all the fear he faces.
Relationships: Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Sun, Stars, Earth [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967482
Comments: 36
Kudos: 459
Collections: AtLA <10k fics to read





	A Village

Fire Lord Zuko was never going to have a conventional family. He was, however, going to have a _healthy_ one.

What a family is not, to him, is a biological nuclear unit who are forced to stay together no matter how much they hate and hurt each other. A severely abusive dictator, a sweet woman who was forced into marriage with a man she feared and never loved, a terrified and traumatized pariah, and a golden child driven mad by fitting herself so perfectly into the mold made for her until it cracked—that was how he was brought up but it would be nothing like what he would leave behind.

No, sometimes a family is a Fire Lord, his boyfriend and his girlfriend who are also dating each other, his ex-girlfriend, her girlfriend, and then an overprotective sister, the Avatar, the world-renowned inventor of metalbending, a doting uncle, an actual loving father, a semi-estranged but caring mother…and the uncomfortable expectation of an heir.

It isn’t as though Zuko was ever opposed to having children. It was just that the obligation was at odds with his greatest fear of becoming his father. Sokka and Suki understood he would eventually have to figure out securing a successor, and they have always been supportive, but they didn’t realize how bad the _pressure_ would be.

Zuko has never been secretive about his relationship status, but they haven’t exactly been public about it either. They don’t hide, but there has never been an official acknowledgement. To many it’s just a rumor, and to the Fire Nation traditionalists who’ve never fully accepted Zuko as their rightful ruler, it is an abhorrent one.

So it isn’t too much of a surprise when many of Zuko’s advisors begin to stress to him that he should find an arrangement with someone of Fire Nation nobility to provide him with an heir, but it is most unwelcome.

“Whatever you need to do, we’ve got your back,” Sokka tells him at the turtleduck pond after an especially annoying meeting. “We get it, it’s Fire Lord business.”

“It’s not _business,”_ Zuko retorts. “Azula and I were business, and look how _that_ turned out. I will _not_ bring a child into this world with that mentality. I would rather give up the throne.”

“Well, _that_ would be a terrible idea,” Mai says dryly, appearing from seemingly nowhere, and Suki can’t help but laugh. “Come on, Zuko, you’re only like the best thing ever to happen to this shithole.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Zuko sighs.

They’ve remained good friends since their breakup. There is still much love between them. It just so happens that Mai is _very_ gay and _very_ much in love with Ty Lee, and it was _painfully_ obvious to everyone but him that Zuko was _very_ much in love with Sokka and rather interested in Suki, and neither of them had been surprised when their confessions came forth, and both were glad to let the other go in pursuit of their individual happiness. So it worked out for everyone, really.

Just as it’s about to now.

“So, you need someone to pop out the next Fire Lord for you, huh,” Mai bluntly states in her usual deadpan.

“Tactful as ever, Mai, thank you,” Suki responds, and Ty Lee giggles from nearby.

“Oh, Mai!” Ty Lee exclaims, upside down as usual. “Why don’t _you_ do it?”

“I was getting there,” Mai notes, staring daggers towards her girlfriend. Her face softens, however, turning back to Zuko. “But really, I’ve been thinking maybe we should…well. Both our parents fucked us up enough we’d have a pretty decent idea what not to do. I know it wouldn’t be just us, but we’d look good on paper. Everyone who’s been nagging you about it would be satisfied, and you’ll have a friend with you who already understands you’re involved in your little scandal waiting to happen, and that co-parenting doesn’t change that and it comes with a crowd.”

“They _do_ say it takes a village,” Sokka teases.

“Yeah, well, _that_ won’t be a problem,” Mai _almost_ chuckles. Almost.

“Wait, you’re serious?” Zuko side eyes her nervously.

“I wouldn’t dick you around on something this important, Zuko. You should know me better than that.”

After all, it’s true that no matter how much she can hate the world, she could never hate him. She might not love him the way she’d once tried to, but she loves him deeply all the same and this really did work out best for everybody.

“Aww, Mai, and maybe your parents will think you’ve been cured of the gay,” Ty Lee jokes as she flips herself onto her feet. They all know it’s not at all funny, but leave it to Ty Lee to try to make light of something so sad in the vain hope of making Mai laugh.

“Anyway, if you need some time to think it over…”

Sokka and Suki both put hands on Zuko’s shoulders and nod. This has to be done, one way or another, and there isn’t going to be a better way than this.

“Alright. Let’s do it. Thank you, Mai.”

***

In the months that follow their agreement, the Fire Nation goes wild. Mai’s assigned family once ruled Omashu, after all, and they are still well respected by many of Zuko’s supporters and political adversaries alike.

Mai’s _real_ family, however, is where her support comes in.

Iroh has returned to the Fire Nation to help in any way he can. Hakoda took an extended leave from his duties to the Southern Water Tribe to stay close towards the end, helping his unofficial son-in-law to the best of his ability while Katara helps Ty Lee take care of Mai. Aang and Toph are hovering nearby at all times, as well, the whole team refusing to leave Mai and Zuko’s side for as long as they need them.

Between Iroh and Hakoda’s presence, one would think Zuko would be handling what’s coming better. But he isn’t. He is terrified.

A few weeks out and the panic attacks are increasing in frequency. He stares at his reflection as Suki rubs his shoulders. She’s been trying to move him away from the mirror but he won’t budge.

“I look like him, don’t I?” Zuko’s voice shakes as hard as his hands. “What if I turn into him? What if he was different once, before I was born? What if parenthood will drive me over the edge? What if I can’t do this? I know the cost of bad parenting, Suki, I can’t…”

“You’re great with Katara and Aang’s kids,” Suki reminds him, but he shakes his head.

“It’s not the same!” he shouts. _“Fuck,_ see? See, I’m doing it right now. Dammit, I…”

“Zuko. _Zuko._ Look at me.” Suki stealthily slips in front of him, blocking his view, and she slides into his lap to resume her grip on his shoulders from the other side. “Zuko, you are _not_ Ozai. Not as a person, not as a Fire Lord, and not as a father. You have more support than anyone out there in this, but even if you didn’t, _you are a good person._ And you already love this kid enough to worry this much, and that says _everything._ Okay, babe? You’ve got this, I promise you. You and Mai and me and Sokka and Ty Lee and Iroh and Hakoda and Katara and Aang and Toph and…”

“Sokka did say it takes a village.” Zuko takes a deep breath, slowly starting to come around.

“And I think it’s time to write to your mom,” Suki suggests. “Let her know what’s going on. She’d want to know.”

Zuko’s relationship with his mother has been more than a little bit awkward since he found her again, and she doesn’t like being in the palace any more than he does, but she has the option to leave. So she spends most of her time in Hira’a with Ikem and Kiyi. She has a house in the capital she is always welcome to stay in, Zuko made sure of that, but he can’t blame her not taking much advantage of it.

And Suki makes a good point, that Ursa hasn’t heard from him about this. She probably knows, everyone knows, but she should have heard about it from him.

He’s just not sure he’s ever been so scared of anything since agreeing to become Fire Lord to begin with. And he is more afraid of letting his mother down too than he could ever say.

“But no matter what happens, you are loved and supported,” Suki punctuates her reassurance with a kiss on his forehead. “Because you deserve it. I believe in you, Zuko.”

“Thank you, Suki. I love you.”

He kisses her on the lips, long and loving, and she beams at him in return.

“I love you, too.”

***

Zuko has barely slept in weeks. Suki and Ty Lee are helping Katara guide Mai through the final hours, so Sokka sits outside with Zuko.

Aang, meanwhile, is chasing around an excessively rambunctious young Bumi while Iroh rocks and hums to an infant Kya to keep her quiet.

Zuko is pacing, and Toph is ready to scream.

“Come on, love,” Sokka grabs him. “Turtleduck pond, let’s go.”

“No, Sokka, I can’t. I have to be here, I—”

“I’ll come for you if you’re not back in time, son,” Hakoda cuts in. Zuko always smiles when he calls him that, even now. “I promise. Go, take a break. Believe me, I know it’s hard, but there’s nothing you can do here right now anyway.”

“Okay… Alright. Fine.” Zuko takes Sokka’s extended hand as he leads him out to the courtyards.

Sitting at the edge of the pond already is, unexpectedly, Ursa. She is calmly tossing tiny bits of bread towards the turtleducklings flocking to her, and she smiles widely when she looks up.

“Mom!”

“Zuko, sweetheart,” she murmurs as he rushes into her arms.

Sokka doesn’t know if perhaps it’s his personal bias talking, but he swears Zuko looks much more like her than Ozai, even if nothing else than in the soft expression on his face and the permanently sorrowful kindness in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

“Iroh wrote me a couple of weeks back and told me this would be a good day to arrive. I only got off the transport balloon a few minutes ago.”

She pulls away and hands Zuko a bag of bread, and he breaks it into small pieces and slowly lays them in the water, as well.

“It is good to see you again, too, Sokka,” she says before she sits back down. Zuko follows her lead, and then Sokka sits beside him and holds onto the hand that isn’t continuously letting bread fall from it.

He kisses Zuko’s shoulder and feels it fall a little, feels some of the tightness relax.

“How are you feeling?” his mother asks, and he takes a deep breath.

“I…I’m glad you’re here. And I’m glad _he_ isn’t.”

“You know, Zuko, when you were kids I had always suspected you and Mai would give me a grandchild someday,” Ursa chuckles. “Although I must admit, this is not _at all_ how I’d have ever pictured it.”

“I don’t think any of us ever pictured our futures looking like this,” Sokka smiles at her. “But like Iroh always says, destiny is a funny thing.”

“And it appears _your_ destiny, sweet Zuko, my son, is to walk a path of love.”

She brushes his cheek with her hand and he shudders at the touch, momentarily loses whose hand it is on his face and nearly forgets he is safe, but after another deep breath he closes his eyes and smiles slightly. Her hands are warm, he notes. It’s comforting.

“All the love you deserve,” she adds.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Sokka laughs. “He deserves more love than there is to give in the whole damn world if you ask me.”

“You take such good care of him, Sokka. Thank you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, trust me.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Zuko mumbles. He is uncomfortable with all this gushing over him, as he usually is. That doesn’t stop those who love him from doing it, though.

Sokka thinks about going with Katara and Aang to the Southern Air Temple, the way Katara tried to hide what the Fire Nation had done there from Aang for as long as possible.

“You can’t protect him forever,” he’d told his sister, and she hadn’t known how to respond.

He understands how she felt.

But in fairness, that’s how he feels every day with Zuko. In fairness, that’s how he’s felt every day since he lost Yue.

But now more than ever, clutching Zuko’s hand while he and Ursa try their best to let Zuko know how much he means to them while he is doing everything in his power not to break into yet another panic attack, it hits harder than normal.

But Sokka also remembers Katara calming Aang by telling him that she and Sokka were his family now, and that had been the first time Sokka had ever considered how much room the definition of _family_ has to grow and vary. And that hits harder than normal here, too.

Zuko is so anxious, so afraid he’s standing on the precipice of turning into a monster, worried he is about to cross through the doorway to his true destiny of becoming the worst of all he hates and fears, that this child who is in the active state of being born will soon come to fear and hate the world the way he has because he will make a life as terrible as the one he went through.

And all Sokka wants is to protect him and their odd little family.

“Zuko… Zuko, babe, hey, look at me…”

Zuko wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for politics, at least not right now and not like this. Mai would always have been a perfect candidate to be the mother of his child because she is from such a highly regarded family and will strengthen his bloodline, whatever that’s supposed to mean, which he knows is the only reason Ursa was chosen for Ozai. It’s different, it is _completely_ different, but he can’t help himself hyperfixating on the parallels.

Zuko takes back his hands and runs a finger between his left eye and ear. He focuses on the rough scar tissue, notices as he usually no longer does that he cannot fully open this eye. He can’t see much out of it, either; he has full light perception and can see some blurry shapes and shadows, but otherwise he relies entirely on his right eye for sight, which means he also has remarkably skewed depth perception. He also makes note of how muffled sound is from the left and the chronic tinnitus that accompanied the damage to his hearing. These losses have been his normal for so long and he doesn’t think much of them anymore, but right now they stand out to him as though they are new all over again.

Because he was a scared, lonely child, and this is how he was treated. Because this scar and all that comes with it are a result of his having had a father whose expectations he could never meet.

“Zuko, hey…”

“I don’t want to fuck this up,” Zuko says through gritted teeth as his eyes water. “I want to do this right. No matter how this looks, I don’t want it all to come down to politics. I don’t want to rely on nannies and boarding schools, either. I want to be there. And Mai says she wants all that, too. But I…I don’t want to be _him._ I swear, Sokka, if I ever do _anything,_ you and Suki need to…”

“You won’t.” Sokka sounds so confident. Zuko doesn’t understand how he could be this confident. “I know you, Zuko, and I know you won’t. If Suki or I saw anything of your father in you, we wouldn’t be here. How lucky is it you get to claim a political alliance by raising a kid with one of your best friends? Who _offered_ to help you? After all the shit that went down with Azula, do you think Mai would be doing this for someone who’s anything like Ozai? How about how she didn’t invite her birthgivers to be here, but you get to bring everyone close to you? Isn’t that telling? Besides, Suki and I won’t _need_ to do anything to you if things go wrong, Mai is way more terrifying and could kill us all before you had time to blink, so you’re covered.”

“Sokka…”

“Okay, not funny, I get it. You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Zuko shakes his head, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“But no matter what, babe, _you are not alone.”_ Sokka steals back both Zuko’s hands, and he lightly kisses each individual knuckle as he speaks. “You’re gonna be fine, but you’re gonna have all the help anyone could ever need. Because so many people love you so much. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. And I have a village, right?”

“You have a village, love.”

Sokka and Ursa suddenly look to the distance, hearing the approach before Zuko does.

It’s Hakoda.

“Come along.”

***

Suki leans into Sokka, their arms wrapped around each other’s backs, and Ty Lee is practically bouncing all around them.

Zuko has been alone with Mai, save for Katara staying back there with them, for the better part of an hour.

“She is _so_ cute,” Ty Lee tells Sokka. “And super squishy.”

“She is _very_ squishy, yes,” Suki laughs. “Zuko’s probably squishing those little cheeks right now.”

“I don’t know, I’m a little worried he’s too afraid to touch her,” Sokka replies.

“That bad, huh?”

“You know how he is, Suki. I had to talk him down from like two panic attacks and even with his mom there it didn’t really work.”

“And _you_ know how he is, too, babe, so you know you can’t blame yourself if it didn’t.”

“Love you, too, Suki.”

Aang returns with Iroh from putting Bumi and Kya to bed, the former thanking the latter profusely for his help. Iroh moves to greet Ursa, while Toph and Hakoda are setting down tables and teacups for everyone at Iroh’s behest.

“How are _you_ feeling, Sokka?” Ty Lee asks, taking him by surprise. “We’re step-parents now! Sort of, anyway.”

“As good as,” Iroh calls out, and Sokka, Suki, and Ty Lee all grin at his show of approval.

“I’m…” Sokka fumbles. “You know, I hadn’t thought about it. I guess I am, though. Excited, I mean. This is gonna be interesting. But I think it’s gonna be good.”

“I know it is,” Suki corrects, and Ty Lee nods.

Everyone’s eyes shift when Zuko walks out, clutching his daughter in his arms. He is unabashedly crying, holding her like his life depends on it.

Zuko’s heart has been bursting since he first laid eyes on her. Kicking and screaming and in desperate need of a bath fresh from birth, but the most beautiful and amazing thing he had ever seen. Even Mai was smiling, wearily looking up at him, exhausted and barely able to hold her eyes open, but smiling.

He first looked at her face, her perfect unburned face, and felt no shame in having to hand her to Katara so he could compose himself. He was overtaken in that moment, outright sobbing at the very idea anyone could ever hurt her the way his father had hurt him. His fear did not leave him entirely, but he could almost physically feel the bulk of it lifting off his shoulders. He had never been so sickened by the thought of how he received his own scar. He could not even try to imagine what kind of person could do such a thing as he gazed into his child’s eyes.

And he is still keeping her as close as he can without smothering her when he brings her out for the grand introduction.

“Everyone…” His voice is small and cracking but he can’t care. Everything is okay. “Meet Izumi.”

Ursa chuckles at the name, smiling so bright.

Sokka, Suki, and Ty Lee rush to crowd them, and everyone gives them the room to do so. Sokka may be the only one of the three seeing her for the very first time, but it is equally magical for everybody involved.

“How ya feeling?” Sokka asks Zuko quietly.

“I’m…I’m feeling a lot and it’s kind of overwhelming but I think…I think I’m _happy.”_

Zuko was never going to have a conventional family, but he swears to all the spirits he will give the one he’s made everything he has, that he will never make them suffer, and that baby Izumi will never for a single second have to feel pressured to win her family’s love. He will gladly dedicate his life to making her always feel the way he does in this moment. He knows that isn’t possible, that he can’t succeed all the time, but where he stumbles he is surrounded by so much more love, and many who can try their hardest to pick up the slack.

Zuko was never going to have a conventional family, but he _promises_ it will be a healthy one. He will give her everything he never had. They all will.

And right now, in this space overflowing with joy and love, this is more than enough.


End file.
